Book I Digital Photography Overview

If you’re shifting your digital photographic pursuits into high gear and want to hit the ground running, this mini book is your fast track to pixel proficiency. You can consider the six chapters in this overview both a quickie course in digital photography concepts as well as a preview of what you can discover in the rest of the book. All the basics are here, so you can begin taking, sharing, and printing great photos right away. When you want to find out more, you can follow the cross references in this book to discover the in-depth coverage you’ll find in the other sections.

This mini book outlines the essentials of good photography and shows you how to decide which digital equipment will do the best job for you. You’ll discover the best ways to acquire digital pictures — whether you choose to use a camera or scanner — and find out the fundamentals of editing and restoring photos with image editors like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Paint Shop Pro. If you want to share and preserve your digital images, you’ll find tips on managing, archiving, and printing your photos, as well as discover the best ways to post them online for others to enjoy.

Chapter 1: The Essentials of Good Digital Photography

In This Chapter

- Choosing equipment

- Making great digital photos

- Converting other photos to digital format

- Making hard-copy prints

In 1888, George Eastman began promoting the first hand-held Kodak camera with the slogan, “You press the button, we do the rest.” His idea was to make the film camera as convenient as the pencil. However, the film king’s dream didn’t really come true until the invention of the digital camera.

Certainly, conventional photography has long been as simple as pressing a button, but the “we do the rest” part-taking the film to a photo lab, deciding what size and kind of prints to make, and then waiting for the results — is a lot less convenient than using a pencil.

Digital photography has finally put the entire process of making pictures in the hands of the person holding the camera. You press the button, and you can do as much of the rest yourself as you’re comfortable with. If all you want to do is point and shoot, you can do that. If you want to get more involved in the picture-taking and picture-making process, digital photography gives you the tools for that, too.

You compose the picture through the viewfinder (as always), but now, you can preview the exact photograph that you’re going to take on a bright LCD (liquid crystal display) screen on the back of your camera. After snapping a shot, you can instantly review the photos you’ve taken and erase the bad pictures on the spot or “mark” the ones you want to print.

10 Knowing What Equipment You Need You don’t need to remember to stop and buy film. Your digital film is almost infinitely reusable. You don’t have to drop off your digital film for finishing: It’s “processed” instantly and ready for viewing or printing using your own inexpensive color printer. No more sifting through stacks of prints of marginal images. You decide which images to print and whether to make them 4 x 6 inches or 5 x 7 inches or some other size. You can print them at home inexpensively or take a tiny digital memory card to a nearby retailer and have even more inexpensive prints made for you in minutes by an in-store digital print lab.

On the other hand, if you want to have full control over your photos, digital photography gives you that, too, to a degree that has never before been possible. Perhaps your images aren’t exactly right or could benefit from a little cropping or other improvements. You can fix bad color, remove your ex-brother-in-law from a family photo, or adjust the borders of an image to focus on the most interesting subject matter. All you need is an image editor,

such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

This chapter provides an overview of the sorts of things you find out how to do in this book. I cover each topic in more detail later on in a mini book and chapter of its own. I’ll keep the repetition to a minimum; the chapters in Book I are intended to offer an introduction to topics that are explored more deeply elsewhere in the book.

Conventions Used in This Book

Digital photography knows no operating system limits. All digital cameras and many software applications work equally well on a PC and a Macintosh. To that end, this book is cross-platform. Understandably, some differences do crop up, particularly in the chapters that deal with image editing. In this book, Windows commands are given first, followed by Mac commands, like this:

Press Enter (or Return on the Mac) to begin a new line.

Occasionally, text will be specific to one platform or another. Commands listed often involve using the keyboard along with the mouse — for example, “Press Shift while dragging with the Rectangular Marquee tool to create a square,” or “Alt +click (Option +click) the eyeball to redisplay all layers”.

When you see a command arrow (➪) in the text, it indicates that you should select a command from the menu bar. For example, “Choose Edit ➪Define Custom Shape” means to click the Edit menu and then choose the Define Custom Shape option.

Although this book was written based on the latest digital cameras and the newest software (such as Print Shop Pro and Photoshop), if you’re still bouncing around with earlier versions, you can still glean valuable info. You might just have to poke around a little more to find a tool or option that has moved — and of course, the topics covering new features won’t be applicable. But hey, seeing the cool new features might just be the impetus you need to go out and upgrade!

Book VIII: Printing and Sharing Your Digital Images

Your digital photos are going to be so good that you won’t be able to keep them to yourself. This book provides more information on printing your photos and shows you ways to share your pictures over the Internet. You’ll become more comfortable with your printer’s capabilities, discovering all the things that you can do with photos online, whether it’s showcasing your pictures among your friends and colleagues or making photo greeting cards, T-shirts, or other gift items.

Book VII: Restoring Old Photos

Continue your study of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements with this book, which shows you how to restore old photos and make some common repairs to your digital images. Read chapters on scanning in print images, tips for working with slides and negatives, and some common fixes for vintage photos.

Book VI: Editing with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements

This book goes into a little more detail on the use of the two most popular image editing programs: Adobe Photoshop (favored by professionals) and Adobe Photoshop Elements (an inexpensive younger sibling that has lots of power but is still easy to use). You discover the power of making selections, brush away problems in your digital photos, correct your colors, and apply special effects with filters. Although this book is not a complete guide to Photoshop, you’ll find lots of

good information you can use right away to try out your digital photo editing muscles. (For tons of in-depth coverage, read Photoshop CS2 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, by Barbara Obermeier [Wiley].)

Book V: Basics of Image Editing

This book is your introduction to image editing, providing general tips on what you can — and can’t — do with popular image editors such as Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photo Paint, Photo Impact, or Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. You’ll see the capabilities of these programs, discovering the full range of tools at your disposal. The book winds up with a chapter that compares and contrasts the most popular image editors so you can choose which image editing program you really need (or whether you might even benefit from owning two!).

Book IV: Taking Great Pictures

This is the meat of the book for veteran and aspiring photographers alike. Each of the six chapters is devoted to a different kind of photography. You’ll see the basic rules for composing great photos — and when to break them. You’ll discover the secrets of close-up photography and how to make pleasing portraits of individuals and groups. Whether shooting for publication is part of your job description or just a goal, you’ll find tips on how to take publishable photos and how to market them. I also include chapters on sports and action photography as well tips on travel photography.